'We've done it', said Kamala's DEI aide. 'We've actually done it'. At that he smiled and looked out over the room full of blacks, women, gays, transgenders, and Latinos, all gathered to hear their candidate for President speak. This was the morning of the big game, and the coach was about to give the motivational pep talk of his life. Beating Tech would not only be the culmination of a season-long fight against a cross-state rival, but the very definition of courage, dedication, and passion; and Coach Harris, beaming broadly at her team, her trusted legions who would go out and win for her, said, 'I love you'.
Bill Clinton started this whole diversity thing when he said that his Cabinet 'would look like America', and in so doing ignored talent and welcomed members selected for the most inconsequential reasons. Recruiting women for their sex meant that their history of Kinder, Küche, Kirche, a life of pots and pans, diapers, ladies teas, and charitable causes had something to bear on the affairs of state; and that because women see the world through a different lens, a more compassionate, caring, and nurturing view, they will bring people together.
Feminists were nonplussed. It was a good thing that the President was making a bold effort to change the calculus of power; but his championing the very hackneyed, patriarchal, discredited notions of femaleness ignored feminists' contention that there is no difference between men and women. Women can be riveters and garbage collectors or solve Fermat's Theorem. Choosing women just because they are women was satisfying - it was about time that women got their due - but such a policy stated an inconvenient truth - women cry a lot, are less aggressive, and more sensitive and empathetic.
The same was true of his recruitment of black people. They are either no different from any other American, as capable as any; or their legacy of servitude - broken families, single fatherhood, Nat Turner rebelliousness, insolence and hatred of the white man - would stand them in good stead for righting the racial ship, restoring racial balance through a Huey Newton confrontation.
Clinton did neither and opted not quite for Uncle Toms nor Stokely Carmichaels, but some bland place in between.
Kamala would have none of that - no faux black people or women for the sake of women. Just look at her, not just a woman but an ur-woman, Woman itself, a powerful, determined sexual being of historical importance. She would not sniff around the edges of diversity which is what Clinton did, peer under the skirts of women, drink malt liquor with the bro's on Baltimore stoops, but like things as white as could be. No, her Administration would be different, radically different.
There were no transgenders in Bill's day, and God only knows what his attitude towards them would have been. Well of course there were transgenders then, but the poor souls were closeted and corseted away, suffering at the hands of the oppressor; and Kamala would finally and once and for all open the cellar door and let them out, free to roam in this great land of ours, full citizens, and revolutionaries who would change the sheets of beds for too long lain in by...
Here she stopped herself, for she was dizzy with the thought of an America without rednecks, crackers, frat boys, and bass boat, gun toting backwoods retards. From sea to shining sea there would be nothing but gay men, queer women, and cross-dressing, made-over New Age sexual alternatives making love like in no time in history.
And then there was the black thang, her very own personal diversity. No Clinton wannabee could ever feel blackness like she felt. She was a proud black woman and would complete the job. The black man would be raised to the top of the human pyramid where he belonged, a being of the forest, in tune with nature and the environment, endowed with tribal wisdom, a man of native precocity. Gone would be the ghettoes, for once she was President all black people would see the light. She would be an apparition, a Virgin Mary at Lourdes and Fatima to which thousands would come to be healed, to be given the gift of....
Once again, dizzy with the thought of such reformation, such wonder, she stopped her pep talk. 'Back down to earth, Kamala', she said sternly to herself. 'Now is not the time for idle thoughts'; but of course the thoughts were not idle at all. She would be a latter day Virgin Mary, an Abraham Lincoln in petticoats, a Joan of Arc, a Cleopatra.
After twenty minutes of her inspiration, her meandering, fantastical images of a Never-Never Land of untold wealth and harmony, the crowd began to fidget. Her speech was in fact too inclusive, too welcoming and charitable to all when they were very different - differently gendered, for sure, different skin color, et cetera, et cetera - but there were priorities.
Progressives had been hammering on about the black man for decades, and it was about time that the wagons headed in another direction, whispered one hard-core, Bernal Heights femme to her seatmate, her lover and confidant. We sexual alternatives will no longer be trotted out in public, in kindergartens, and on the stage without the teeth of racial civil rights. A fey gay man who overheard them sniffed, and
said, 'We will not be denied'.
No longer satisfied with a simple palette, progressives had insisted on a Jackson Pollock tableau. Just a woman would not suffice. She had to be black and transgender, an inclusivity trifecta. Gay men had less value because, despite their coming out of the closet, were still men after all; and Latinos of either sex hadn't enough radical cachet - Cesar Chavez was a bit old hat.
The entire Harris campaign staff was a potpourri of this strange assembly of former fringe members; but meetings were not the inclusive, respectful, collaborative affairs the Vice President had hoped for. The internecine squabbles were something to behold.
Of course there was dissension in the ranks. Human nature being what it is, no one likes to play second fiddle. When you have not just gay people in the mix but demiflux, muxe, and neutrois people among other choices on the fluid gender spectrum, you are bound to have some bitchiness and me-first elbowing to the front of the line
So behind closed doors and out of earshot of the Vice President, cabals began to form, alliances negotiated and made, and propositions formulated. How should gay black men align? And straight Latinos who had barely made it into the big tent (too Catholic, too maladroit, and too foreign) really had no one of their ilk to sidle up to. The tough girls of Bull Hollow wanted no part of transgender girly-girls who were stealing their thunder; and the gentle black dancers were afraid of the grilled and gold-chained pimp-walking thugs of the ghetto.
'This was not supposed to happen', remarked the Vice President. Inside the progressive big tent, peace and harmony were supposed to reign, personal ambitions put aside in the interests of the cause. Environmentalists, peaceniks, black radicals, and all the rest were to leave their guns at the door, join in a We Are The World exclamation of solidarity,
Wrong. Progressives talked the talk about a new, fully integrated, harmonious world of vision and commitment, but the reality was far different.
'That cunt!', shouted LaShonda Phipps at an uppity white transgender woman always at Kamala's hems looking for attention; and that became the meme for the Party, the campaign, and the country.
Of course all of this will be dumpster trash if Trump wins the election, so there is hope at the end of the road.
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